"The Fast-Food Information Age: We Are What We Read"

beSpacific (11/22/2008) points us to a thought-
provoking Encyclopedia Britannica Blog post
by author Michael Ross entitled, The Fast-Food
Information Age: We Are What We Read.

Citing two recent academic studies, Ross states that
"between 90% and 98% of library users today assume
that they can get all of the information they need just
by doing a search on Google. This means that even teachers
and students—whose jobs and degrees depend on trust and
accuracy—in addition to ordinary Internet users, turn to search
engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo) as their first, and perhaps only,
destination for information."

Ross encourages us follow the lead of the natural, whole foods
movement and "care as much about what we put into our
brains as we put into our stomachs."

Chicago-Kent Launches Web Resource on the 2008 Financial Crisis

The Chicago-Kent College of Law (ITT Downtown
Campus Library) has launched a new web resource
on the 2008 financial crisis.

The primer provides resources such as articles on the
failure of regulation, the Congressional testimony of key
players, editorials on the government's bailout of banks,
books on previous financial debacles, and the voices of
people who have lost homes in foreclosures.
It includes links and citations to print resources as well
as excerpts from radio and television programming on
the topic.

Web Site on How Congress Works

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on
Rules has developed an information guide on How
Congress Works. This is a wonderful tools for
instructors of legislative process and legislative
history.

The site links to materials on the following topics:
Rules and Precedents of the House;
Parliamentary Terms & Definitions; General
Parliamentary Procedure; the Budget Process; House
Floor Procedures; House Committee Procedures;
Resolving Differences With the Senate; selected CRS
Reports; and, the Legislative Process.


Hat tip to Joe Hodnicki at the Law Librarian Blog.

Supreme Court of Canada - Disabled & Clinically Obese Have Right to 2 Airline Seats

The Supreme Court of Canada denied an appeal by three
Canadian airlines Thursday that would compel functionally obese
passengers and disabled individuals who need an attendant
to purchase two airline seats.

The ruling came out five years after the initial complaint
was filed in 2002. The application for leave to appeal from
the judgment of the Federal Court of Appeal, Number 08-A-11,
dated May 5, 2008, was dismissed with costs to the respondents,
Joanne Neubauer and Council of Canadians with Disabilities.
The text of the Supreme Court judgment in appeal had not been
released at the time of this writing.

Newspaper Political Cartoons Celebrate Election

Bigpicture’s posterous has compiled a wonderful
sampling of newspapers' political cartoons celebrating
this year's historic election. Enjoy!

Lawyer2Lawyer Podcast: Legal Issues in the Auto Bailout

This week, Lawyer2Lawyer co-hosts Robert Ambrogi
and J. Craig Williams discuss the legal and policy issues
surrounding a bailout for the big three automakers.

Guests are Professor Eugene F. Fama, the Robert R.
McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at
the University of Chicago Booth School of Business;
Andrew Z. Schwartz, head of the Bankruptcy and
Restructuring Group at Foley Hoag LLP in Boston; and
Lisa C. Wood, partner and co-chair of the Securities and
Corporate Disputes Practice at Foley Hoag in Boston.

Listen to or download the show from this page.

Law Professors in the Obama Administration

Nan Hunter (Georgetown Law) is compiling a list of
law professors in President-Elect Obama's transition
team. She is calling them "Lawbama profs."

"Tour the Legal Web's New Sites"

This month, Robert Ambrogi features new legal web
sites in his Law Technology News column on Law.com.

Included in his review are:

Lexis Web (Lexis' Internet search engine)
eLawExchange (e-discovery web site)
LitiReviews (a site for legal software and technology)
Global Legal Monitor (global legal news)
Codes.gov (state and municipal public safety codes)
USPTO Examiners (about patent examiners and trademark
examining attorneys)

Rehnquist Papers Opened to Researchers at the Hoover Institution

From the Hoover Institution press release
(11/12/2008):

Materials from the papers of the late Justice William H.
Rehnquist involving his work from 1947 to 1971 and
Supreme Court cases from the 1972 to 1974 terms will be
opened to researchers on November 17, 2008, at the
Hoover Institution. The materials are part of the vast
Rehnquist collection donated to the Hoover Institution
Archives at Stanford University.

A finding aid for the materials open on November 17 is
also available.

Read the New York Times article concerning the opening
of the Rehnquist papers.

Institute for Women's Policy Research

Cornell Law Library's InSite current awareness service
of 11/3/2008 points us to the Institute for Women's Policy
Research, an independent, non-profit research organization
that also works with graduate programs in public policy and
women's studies at George Washington University.

"The Institute works with policymakers, scholars, and public
interest groups around the country to design, execute,
and disseminate research that illuminates economics and social
policy issues affecting women and families, and to build a network
of individuals and organizations that conduct and use women-
oriented policy research."

Reports and documents on the web site address the five
major program areas (poverty, welfare, and income security;
work and family; employment, education, and economic change;
health and safety; and democracy and society) as well as special
topics.

In addition to academic research reports (most available for free
in PDF format and/or available for purchase), the site includes
speeches - some in audio format - given by Institute-affiliated
scholars.

2008-2009 Presidential Transition Resources

The General Services Administration (GSA) has developed
a 2008-2009 Presidential Transition web site in consultation
with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The Presidential Transition Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-293) provides
that the transition directory "shall be a compilation of Federal
publications and materials with supplementary materials
developed by the Administrator that provides information on
the officers, organization, and statutory and administrative
authorities, functions, duties, responsibilities, and mission
of each department and agency."

The site includes leadership publications, nominee and
appointee guidance, and other material on the U.S.
government and presidential transition and inauguration.

Hat tip to the Librarians' Internet Index (11/13/2008).

"Slavery Reparations: What Happened?"

An interesting op-ed piece by Walter Olson in the LA Times
(10/31/2008) ponders possible reasons for the apparent
demise of the reparations movement. Olsen reports that,
"according to LexisNexis, U.S. newspapers and wire services
ran nearly 2,600 stories including the words "slavery" and
"reparations" in the year leading up to 9/11. Since then, the
yearly average has been less than 1,000." Read the article
to learn Olsen's views on why the topic seems to have since
disappeared from the national agenda.

Hat tip to the Faculty Lounge.

Top 50 Homeland Security Blogs

E-Justice lists the top 50 homeland security blogs.
The site identifies government blogs; blogs by strategists,
theorists, and analysts; academic and research blogs;
opinion and news sites; and blogs by specific homeland
security issues.

Hat tip to Law X.O.

Google's "Ancient Rome 3D"

The Official Google Blog reports on the launch of
Ancient Rome 3D, a layer of Google Earth where
"everyone in the world, from Rome itself to Calcutta,
can now travel through time and discover Ancient
Rome as it was 1,688 years ago when it was ruled by
Emperor Constantine."

Ancient Rome 3D includes more than 6,700 buildings of
Ancient Rome rebuilt in 3D. Inside of the Rome 3D layer of
Google Earth, you can "fly into Rome as it looked in 320 A.D.;
tour the interior of famous buildings; visit sites such as
the Roman Forum, Colosseum and the Forum of Julius Caesar;
and learn about how the Romans lived."

To access Ancient Rome 3D, you must install Google Earth
4.3 on your computer.

CRS Report: Status of a Senator Who Has Been Indicted for or Convicted of a Felony

The Congressional Research Service has prepared a report
on the Status of a Senator Who Has Been Indicted
for or Convicted of a Felony (October 22, 2008) [PDF].

Hat tip to beSpacific.

HeinOnline Tutorial on Federal Legislative History Research

HeinOnline is a terrific resource for researching
federal legislative histories. The HeinOnline Weblog
offers an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to use their
collections' federal legislative history resources. The
tutorial includes a helpful step-by-step example,
using the Administrative Procedure Act bill as
illustration. (HeinOnline is a subscription service).

5 Million Digitized Pages Available at the Center for Retrospective Digitization in Göttingen

The Center for Retrospective Digitization at the Göttingen State
and University Library offers more than 5 million pages from historic
works, including books, journals, maps and periodicals. Subject
collections include autobiographies, works in the humanities,
social sciences, and hard sciences, mathematical literature, North
American literature (mostly in German), Sibirica, travel literature,
and zoologica. The contents are searchable and browsable.

Included in the digital collection is the magnificent Gutenberg Bible.